Within These Walls (The Walls Duet #1)(55)

His eyes looked lost as if they had drifted off to someplace in his past.

“Tell me about your family,” I said, tugging on his hand.

He got the hint, and set his coffee and the trash from his dinner down next to the bed. He joined me, and I curled into his warmth as I waited for him to respond.

“My family is a variety of things. We were four different people all thrown into one house, but I guess that could probably summarize every family on the planet. Mine just came with the added pressure of a multibillion-dollar corporation.”

“Did you say billion?”

He nodded.

“My mom is kind and loving, and my father adores her. Over the years, the press has occasionally tried to find evidence of my father cheating, but they’ll never find it. They’d have better luck looking for cheating in other areas besides his marital bed,” he remarked, shaking his head.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s just say my father’s and brother’s business practices haven’t always been the most…”

“Legal?” I guessed.

“No, they’re mostly legal—or at least they could pay someone off to vouch for it. I have just never been in agreement with the way they do business. For them, it’s always been pure greed. How much can we make, and how fast can we make it? It doesn’t matter how many companies we have to close, or the amount of people we have to put out of business. It’s all about the bottom dollar. If the trend was to expand, we would. If we had to downsize, we’d cut corners until we were making out like thieves. I hated it.”

“Is that why you left?”

“It’s why I stayed away. It’s not why I left though.”

Still curled into his chest, I pulled back slightly and found him staring down at me, his eyes full of conflict.

“I was engaged,” he confessed, his voice hoarse and soft.

I wrapped my hands around his and squeezed. “I know.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I found an article about you—”

“And it mentioned the car accident,” he guessed.

“No, it was actually Grace who told me about that part. She didn’t know it was you I was asking about.”

He nodded, not making a sound.

“I assumed you would tell me when you were ready,” I offered.

“Her name was Megan,” he said finally after a long pause. “She was a firecracker and a jokester, and everyone loved her. Every one of my friends thought I was insane for proposing to her the day we graduated from college, but I knew I wanted her by my side when I would have to return home to join forces with my father and brother. Megan and I had two weeks of vacation to enjoy California and Hawaii before my days of fun would end, and I would have to trade it all. God, I remember being so scared about how it would all turn out, having a wife and my demanding father. I didn’t know how it could work, but I wanted it to so badly.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Megan and I went to a party. We’d met some random college students at a bar and they’d invited us back to an end of the year party on campus. I begged her to drive us back to the hotel rather than stay the night. It’s all my fault,” he answered, his voice cracking.

“Oh, Jude,” I said, my heart breaking for him.

He wrapped his arms around me, like I was his anchor, as he held me in silence.

“You stayed here to punish yourself,” I whispered against his chest.

He took his time before answering, “I stayed because I had nowhere else to go.”

I pulled back, looking into his eyes that were so full of sadness.

“But you had a family, Jude. What about your friends? Didn’t they care that you were hurting, grieving?”

“Friends can only try for so long. After I switched my number and disappeared—so did they. And my family made it perfectly clear that they needed me for one purpose, and that was to make money,” he answered, his expression growing a bit harder at the mention of his family.

“Besides, my life was over, Lailah. I had no home to return to.”

“I cannot even begin to understand what you went through, but to hear you say you thought your life was over pains me in a way I can’t describe. You were twenty-two, Jude. You lost someone you loved, but your life was definitely not over. I really hope you don’t still think that.”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore.” He sat up and ran his hands through his hair in a frustrated manner. I followed, sitting with my legs crossed beside him.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe your life had just started?” I asked.

His eyes flew up to mine in surprise. “How?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but you said you were scared to death of what might happen when you returned to New York. Did it ever occur to you that by staying here in California, you might have given yourself a chance to create something new, something different?”

He scooted forward, out of my grasp, until he moved off the bed completely. He stalked across the room. “Are you saying that Megan’s death happened for a reason?” His words were clipped as he paced from one corner to the next.

My face fell at his angry words. “God, no, Jude. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”